BeatTips News

December 09, 2013

BROOKLYN, NY—December 16, 2013—BeatTips and Superchamp Books today announced The BeatTips Manual will be available for Amazon Kindle and Apple Devices starting December 16. The BeatTips Manual (available at the Kindle Store, iTunes, and BeatTips.com) is the definitive beatmaking guide and one of the most innovative music studies ever published. It offers a serious exploration of the art of beatmaking, hip hop/rap’s chief compositional method and most intricate sub-tradition, and it delivers a uniquely powerful examination of the roots and nuances of hip hop culture. DJ Rich Medina calls The BeatTips Manual "the best book ever written on the topic;" HipHopIsRead says it's "the go-to guide for beatmaking;" CrateKings proclaimed that The BeatTips Manual "is by far the single best book focusing on hip hop production;" and SoundsandGear says, "This is a great book! If you make beats, or have any interest in making beats/producing, this book is a must have."

Brilliantly divided into five parts, including an absolutely stunning History part, an extensively detailed and robust Instruction part, a Music Theory part, a Business part, and an explosive Interviews part, which includes exclusive interviews with DJ Premier, DJ Toomp, 9th Wonder, Marley Marl and more, The BeatTips Manual is meticulously comprehensive and sharply informative. Through a highly detailed analysis of the origins of beatmaking as well as its key aesthetics, principles, predilections, nuances, and priorities, author Amir Said (Sa’id) offers deep insight and timely advice. He convincingly argues that beatmaking is a legitimate music compositional process, and that beatmakers (hip hop producers) are the common composers of our time. An incredibly revealing look at the beatmaking musical process, and one of the most fascinating studies of hip hop culture and the hip hop/rap music tradition to ever be recorded, The BeatTips Manual is both groundbreaking and necessary.

“Beatmaking is a rather intricate art form, one rich with tradition and history,” says Said. “As such, if it is to ever receive its proper recognition in the world of contemporary music, it requires a detailed study of all of its critical nuances.” Speaking on his aim of the book, Said says, “With The BeatTips Manual, my goal was to create a reading experience that stirs one’s musical intuition, stimulates the cultural mind, and, ultimately, motivates people to make the best music they can.”

BeatTips has provided the most trusted information on the craft, culture, and business of beatmaking/hip hop production since 2002. The 1st edition of The BeatTips Manual was published by Superchamp Books in 2002, the same year BeatTips.com was founded. Used by beatmakers and in schools around the world, in 2007, The BeatTips Manual, now widely held as the standard for hip hop production education, was featured in New York University’s first course on beatmaking and hip hop production. Since then, The BeatTips Manual has been used in countless schools and institutions of higher learning, including The Berklee College of Music and the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), and it continues to be recognized as the definitive beatmaking/hip hop production book around the globe, confirming its status as one of the most important music studies of our time.

BeatTips and Superchamp Books are divisions of Superchamp, Inc., a mixed-media company based in Brooklyn, NY.

November 11, 2010

Engineer, Producer, and Label Owner Announced As BeatTips.com Senior Contributor

By AMIR SAID (SA'ID)

It is with great pleasure that I announce that fellow beatmaker (producer), engineer, Nasa, has joined BeatTips.com. Nasa, former house engineer for the Def Jux label and current owner of Uncommon Records, brings his rather unique beatmaking, engineering, and label-running expertise and years of experience in the music business to the BeatTips team.

A stalwart of the indie hip hop/rap music scene and a long-time supporter of underground hip hop/rap, Nasa's perspective on what it takes to make it as a music maker in a truly DIY (Do It Yourself) era is sharp and multi-nuanced. That's why I'm confident that Nasa will prove to be a very valuable member of the BeatTips Team.

As Senior Contributor, Nasa will regularly contribute articles, editorials, and tutorials that capture the essence of his collective expertise and experience.
Nasa will add strong value to BeatTips.com, and his contribution will undoubtedly help us continue to deliver the same high caliber of content that readers have come to expect from BeatTips.com everyday.

"Sampling is piracy."
WRONG!
Piracy describes the wholesale, verbatim copying and distribution of copyrighted works. That is not sampling; that's something entirely different.Read more

"You can legally sample and use any recording up to 1, 2, 3, or 4 seconds."
WRONG!
Under existing copyright law, there is no clear, predetermined length (amount in seconds) that
is “legally” permissible to sample.Read more

"If you use samples on a free mixtape, it’s perfectly O.K."
WRONG!
A free mixtape does NOT permit you to use samples from copyrighted recordings without the permission of the copyright holders.Read more

"Sampling is easy; there’s nothing to it. Anyone can do it well."
WRONG!
Sampling is an art form that requires technical skill, imagination, and artistic understanding.Read more

"Sampling involves the use of pre-recorded songs only."
WRONG!
While the art of sampling is most commonly understood to include the use of pre-recorded songs (traditionally from vinyl records), source material for sampling includes any recorded sound or sound that can be recorded.Read more

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